PDB Situation Report | October 26, 2024: Buck Sexton on Election Foreign Policy & China’s Taiwan Warning
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Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get brief. Today, we're wading into a topic that we really don't often cover here on the PDB, and that would be domestic U.S. politics. With the 2024 election on the horizon, you may have heard about it. One thing is certain, a new president in 2025 will bring significant changes to America's foreign policy. Well, perhaps.

To break down what those shifts could look like, we're joined by former CIA officer and co-host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. Of course, I'm talking about my good friend Buck Sexton, and he'll have his insights and information and wisdom. Later in the show, Chinese President Xi Jinping, well, he's not a guest on our show, but we're talking about him. He was in Russia this week, participating in the annual BRICS summit. Now, this comes a week after

after his nation encircled the island nation of Taiwan with warships and fighter jets during a provocative military exercise meant to demonstrate its power. Gordon Chang, author of the new book Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America, will stop by to give his analysis. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.

We're now less than two weeks away from the U.S. presidential election. Can it get here any sooner? And the race is tightening. Polls show Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in a virtual tie, though the momentum currently seems to be swinging in Trump's favor. The two candidates bring, well, let's call them vastly different approaches to both foreign and domestic policy. Under the Biden-Harris administration, illegal immigration, of course, has surged

with millions crossing the southern border. Meanwhile abroad, the war in Ukraine drags into its third year, and the conflict in Gaza threatens to escalate into a broader regional war.

Of course, Trump has promised to return to stricter border policies and stem the surge of illegal migration. And overseas, well, the former president asserts that his administration would bring an end to the Ukraine war and ease tensions in the Middle East. But he's offered few specifics on how he plans to achieve that.

So, with two very different visions for America's future on the line, the question is, which approach will resonate more with voters as we inch closer to election day? And will Trump's promises of restoring order at home and abroad be enough? Joining me now is the co-host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, former CIA officer Buck Sexton. Hey, man, listen, thank you very much for taking the time to be here on The Situation Report.

I'm honored to be here with you. I got to say, Mike Baker, it's like 007 and Casey Kasem come together, man. You know, you got the voice, but you got the 007. I love it. Yeah, I'm hoping they're going to reboot, you know, Scooby-Doo, and I'll be able to do the voiceover on that, because that, as far as I was concerned, was Casey's biggest gig. Okay, so we got a lot to cover, right? But first, I think we got to get to your P. Diddy story.

I can't believe you're throwing me under the bus like that. By the way, no matter what I say here, we're going to get into serious stuff. No matter what I say, just the fact that we're launching it with a Bucks P. Diddy story is just kind of like, that's the headline. Okay. For those listening and viewing, and we have wonderful viewers and listeners here, let me just explain that we were in the green room before we started this show eating lobster and truffles and

And Buck says, hey, I got a P. Diddy story. I do. So the floor is yours. So look, you know, I'm a young guy and all of a sudden I get an invite. No, I'm just kidding. I was living, I was like maybe a, I want to say a freshman in high school age. And I grew up on 75th Street in New York City. It's a nice building. It's a very nice neighborhood. You know, just in case anyone's like, oh. And sure enough,

um there was like this whole scuttlebutt if you will that said p diddy has bought the building next door so i'm like a fresh and this is when pd is at his absolute sort of peak of the music it's like you know 1997 98 right so it's like post post uh uh you know death of biggie smalls

And I'm like, wait a second. P Diddy is going to be living right next to me now in high school, like right next door. And, and yeah, he lived at, he lived at eight 13 park Avenue and I lived at eight 15 park Avenue, uh, as a kid. And, and I remember, uh,

There would be a baby blue Bentley that was a convertible with cream interior. It was like the fanciest car I'd ever seen just sitting there out outside for him with the biggest security guards I had ever seen, like in my life. I mean, dudes who look like they could have been starting and probably were starting line into the NFL. So I used to, I used to see him regularly all, all when I was in high school. I mean, I probably bumped into Pete Diddy's crew on the street in front of my building and

I don't know, 50 times. It was just like a regular thing. Good God. And we were all like, oh, man. Did you ever bump into him at the CVS pharmacy buying baby oil or anything like that? I think he had people that probably did that for him. But I do remember. I'm trying to think of what else. I guess he did. You know, the neighborhood was –

there weren't a lot of uh hip-hop stars living on the upper east side at the time so it was quite a uh you know it was it was it was very noticed that people like oh wow because it was like the some of the buildings um you couldn't actually you had to like

get through a committee to get into that's how it works in manhattan in some of these buildings it's a it's a called a co-op right so it's a cooperative um but the building that he bought was a condominium it was just you know you write the check you can buy and it was supposed to be apartments he just bought the whole he just bought the whole building um so yeah pete and then they read they used that years later i think for i never watched it but like making the band or something but i yeah i used to see i used to see puff on the street all the time i was like yo what's up puff

Wow. I got to tell you something, Mr. Sexton. I had no idea, first of all, that you were this posh. Look at you, living in the lap of luxury in New York City as a young man. And now this whole celebrity connection. Although, frankly, I'd keep that under wraps at this stage of the game. I've got better celebrity stories. Anyway.

There can't be a better one than that. It's certainly not more timely. Anyway, look, OK, we're going to move on. We're going to move on. I know that the people tuned in for the P. Diddy news of the day. But I want to talk about, look, you follow this a lot more than I do. And you're extremely well versed on what's happening with U.S. politics right now. But I want to focus on it from the perspective of the foreign policy differences that exist

If Harris wins, if Trump wins, I know this is a really big playing field that I'm setting in front of you, but lay out what you see as the key differences between those two potential administrations from a foreign policy perspective.

You know, it's fascinating because this is one place where you've seen the really a merger occur, Mike, of the old Cheney neocon wing of the Republican Party and the Democrat

uniparty interventionists. I know that that's kind of a lot of jargon, but effectively, the Democrat Party is the party of the machine state. And that includes certainly the federal bureaucracy, which you and I come out of, where we are anomalies, just so everybody knows. I mean, most of my, I mean, Mike was with the cool kids, but I was with the analysts and, you know, a bunch of like cringing betas down in the basement, writing reports and stuff. They were all, I

Either Bernie Sanders or. I got to stop you right there, man. The way you just described that makes it makes it sounds like it was the jocks and the nerds are like somehow the ops guys were walking by giving you guys wedgies over in the in the in the D.I. And that is not the way that's not the way it works. No, that wasn't the way I was there. Case officers are like, write me a report. Right.

No, we were always impressed. We were always impressed with how smart you guys were. I will say my office, the Iraq office, which I worked in, not to get too far afield here, but the Iraq office, which you had to sort of like –

internally, you know, you had to be chosen for it. Like you had to apply and they, cause they were kind of sifting out and, you know, you basically had to say, I'm willing to go to rock. I'll help any way I can. So the rock office was actually a lot of X mill guys. We had SF guys. We had Marine recon who came in and were analysts. So I am kidding, but there are a lot of cringing mutants who are analysts that that's in some of the other offices. Anyway, put that aside for a second. Back to the differences in the party and, and where, where I see a huge amount of daylight. I mean, the,

The Republican Party's, I think, most painful lesson of the last 20 years has been the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think that Donald Trump has been a big part of learning that lesson in a, not just learning it, but applying it in a meaningful way in terms of the foreign policy philosophy of the right. It has moved not just to an America First posture, but to a highly non-interventionist

posture, meaning unless there's a critical U.S. interest that will be achieved by the force of arms, we should not be involved. The Democrats do not take that perspective. The Democrats, as we know, whether it's the Obama administration and the numerous foreign policy debacles there, including their role in Libya, we all saw 13 hours and what happened in Syria, the Syrian civil war. The beginning, I might add, of the Russia invasion of Ukraine was that people forget this, but it stretches back

um to uh i'm trying to remember even the year now it's like seven or eight years going back now and it also uh the seizure of crimea uh occurred you know through referendum under barack obama's tenure right so these are right all lessons that i think uh have been reflected in the way trump approaches things you know with kamala harris you get this

It's weird, right, because on the one hand, you have all these beta males like the current secretary of state, Lincoln, and this multilateral international institution-based view of how the U.S. should operate in the world, but also the deployment of U.S. troops and or U.S. materiel, you know, money.

in places where it's not really clear what our objective is. You can make sort of a human rights or human policy argument about it. So do you know what I mean? I think that there's been a massive philosophical shift where the Democrats are now much more inclined to get us involved in military adventurism abroad that doesn't have a clear U.S. interest because they haven't learned the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and others. And so that's where I think the main switch is. That's kind of a long answer, but I think it's an important topic.

Yeah, no, I think it's actually right on the money. If I'm not mistaken, I think Nikki Haley, when she was talking about her switch over to the Republican Party, said one of the reasons was because she felt the Democrats had become the party of war. And it is, for those of us old enough to remember, it is quite the switch in terms of how the parties are perceived on the international front when it comes to conflict.

With Ukraine, there's a lot of talk about if Trump wins, what that means for Ukraine, what that means for the EU in terms of their support for Ukraine. How do you view that? Where do you think he would go with this?

You know, I think that I know this is like a favorite, a favorite topic of a lot of the particularly, I think, the never Trump right. I mean, they still act like Trump's BFF relationship with Vladimir Putin is somehow both disqualifying for Trump to be commander in chief again. And then also.

goes to a lack of loyalty to America. I mean, I'm just saying that that's the argument that certainly you get from Democrats on the Russia collusion and, you know, Putin stuff. But you also get that from sort of that Cheney, old school Cheney interventionist, Republican Bush era GWAT folks. And here's, you know, here's what I would say about the way that we can break all this stuff down. Russia, yeah, Trump has this

I think you could call it a respect. He says it. He's told me that before in interviews. He has a respect for Putin's abilities. He's sort of a worthy adversary. But you look at what happened while Trump was president vis-a-vis Russia, right, Mike? You look at things like, I think it was 50 or 60 diplomats expelled from the U.S., which...

to a lot of people that's like who cares that's in diplomatic relations if you're going to talk about what the state department can do that's a pretty strong move i'll give you something stronger than that though the barack obama's administration and i spoke to obama's i debated obama's national security advisor uh on um ukraine issues i mean it was like eurasia i forget he was the national security council guy for eurasia focusing on ukraine

Obama's team wouldn't give lethal munitions to Ukraine. And when the first invasion happened, right, they were sending blankets and helmets

Trump comes along, people forget this now, and actually says, okay, look, if we're going to do this, let's actually do this. Let's not mess around. And he sent the Javelin missile system, which was critical, especially as the Russian armor was so far beyond the capabilities of the Ukrainians at that point to resist, and also sent long-range sniper rifles, which as you know, Mike, the

the warfare over there is effectively trench warfare it's like this hybrid of new tech with the drones and the digitized you know our artillery it's like a game of risk with artillery shells going on and everyone using digitized communication to uh pinpoint with pinpoint accuracy and then you have guys in trenches like it's the first world war um

long-range rifles uh dragon off sniper rifles things like that trump gave that to ukraine obama wouldn't do it so when and then there's the i want to call it 150 some odd russian paramilitaries uh wagner group guys wagner group guys that uh they took out in the syrian desert i mean you know i know you know this but i just think for people to hear this and remember

Trump is the guy that will bend over and do anything for Russia, but he's expelling the diplomats, he's giving lethal munitions through Ukraine, and he's giving the okay as commander-in-chief for operations that include blowing hundreds of Russians out of the sand. You know what I'm saying? So this is, I think, an important part of the history that people need to remember. And then for how this plays out for the EU, for NATO, and for the conflict right now with Ukraine and Russia, I would just say...

There's going to have to be a negotiated settlement. And Putin isn't going to negotiate. Putin is never going to feel pressure from the Democrat administration of Kamala Harris to do anything. I think he just views her as laughable. Honestly, I view her as laughable. I think that Joe Biden, even with senility, is a more formidable statesman, despite the dementia than Kamala Harris is. I think with Donald Trump, you can sit down and say, look, what's it going to be to stop this? If you don't,

I'm going to find ways to turn the heat up that actually bother you. Not enough that you're going to be able to get away with a major military escalation, but I'm going to make things hurt more. You know I can. Let's get a deal done. Let's stop the killing. That's how I see a Trump administration on Ukraine, Russia moving forward and on NATO and EU stuff.

They were saying this, remember, Mike, the whole time, oh, NATO allies need to pay more. He was right. He's right. One thing about Trump is you can't rip him off, right? I mean, whatever's in the contract, he's going to expect that money to get paid. Like, you're not going to get away with that. And these European countries were getting a free ride, and he called them out, and he was right. But I don't see there as being any...

harm done to the transatlantic relationship or anything like that under Trump. If anything, I think that calling them to account strengthens things over the long term. Yeah, I think it's you're pointing to an important part of this, which is people have to be able to look at

what actually has happened, right? The facts as opposed to the political narrative. But I don't know that we live in an environment where that happens very often right now, because, I mean, obviously, the Democrats have been banging the same drum for some time, right? Trump is a Putin puppet. Trump is going to get us out of important international alliances. You know, he's going to stop support for Ukraine, whatever it is. But

Again, I think you've laid out very, very clearly that if people just look, we already got that we were in a very unique situation here going into this election. Right. We've got a candidate on the Democrat side who we know from now almost four years as vice president and working within the Biden-Harris administration. And we've got an individual who was president for four years that we can look at a track record. Right. That that almost.

you know, would mean that people are obligated. They have to step back and say, let's look at the facts of those two administrations, of those two periods of time, and just discard the political narratives, which are just flying around. Now they're getting crazy. This last two weeks are going to be insane. But

I will get off my soapbox right now. Buck, we've got some tremendous sponsors. We're going to have to listen to just a few of them. And so if you'll stay where you are, we'll be right back after this quick break. Look, if you're tired of the same old coffee from those mega corporations, you know the ones I mean, pushing their agendas, well, listen up.

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You know, every day we hear more about surveillance and how our right to privacy is being infringed upon. Well, we're hearing more about it because it's happening. It feels like, I don't know, it feels like we're living in a world where nothing is truly private anymore. Most of us, for the sake of convenience, hand over our personal information without a second thought. Signing up for services, shopping online, or using social media. And I know you use social media. But this convenience, well, it comes at a cost.

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And for my listeners, I've got a special deal. Go to mysudo.com slash Mike Baker and use code Mike Baker to get 30 days free on a Sudo Pro yearly subscription. Take back your privacy with mysudo. Trust me, it's worth it. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is the co-host of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, former CIA officer and man about town, Buck Sexton. Buck, uh...

Earlier, we were talking about what you perceive as a top line, the 30,000-foot view on the differences between a potential Harris administration and a Trump administration from a foreign policy perspective. We were talking about Ukraine in particular. I want to get your opinion on some recent news that's come out, and that is that North Korea, Kim Jong-un,

right, in his growing bromance with Putin, reportedly has dispatched possibly thousands, some reporting points up to 10,000 North Korean soldiers to not only train in Russia, but to serve on the front lines next to Russian troops in the fight against the Ukrainians. Do you think the reporting is accurate, credible? What do you make of this and what's the potential for a real problem? Sure.

Should you know, should they get in the firing line? You know, this is really interesting to me because it brings a few things together. One is that any move that North Korea makes at some level is is is approved of and OK by China. Right. So this is the and so whenever you're talking Russia, North Korea, you're also.

these three things connect, right? China could effectively cut off and starve out North Korea more than it's already being starved, unfortunately, tomorrow if they wanted to, right? Without the

the assistance of the Chinese state and the, you know, the willingness of the Chinese state to allow North Korea to exist, it would effectively just wither up and become absolutely nothing. But back to the, so I just think that's worth noting as you're talking about the Russia-North Korea relationship, you're also, I'm also wondering how Xi Jinping and Putin are talking, like there's no way this is happening without Xi's

And I would argue probably his acceptance of this. You know, this is just not a thing that would occur without there being a few players involved, in my opinion. As to the North Koreans getting involved, there's like a good news, bad news component of this, right? The thing is, at least when you're dealing with North Korea and Russia, normally with North Korea, if they're sending troops somewhere, like if the North Koreans were sending people to go help out in Russia,

Hamas against Israel, right? In Gaza, you've got advanced missile technology, you've got nuclear technology. You know, you've got things that all of a sudden you're wondering like, hold on a second, is there a proliferation concern here, a nuclear proliferation concern? Obviously, Russia has, I think, more nukes still than we do. It's got thousands of nukes. So that's not a part of it that's concerning to me. The part that is perhaps

encouraging maybe, although, you know, I don't know. I mean, we're now just like looking at body counts as encouraging is if they're going to rely on North Korean special operations troops. And, you know, my understanding is that they're also trying to have them, they're going to put them in units

that are comprised of Eastern Siberian Russians, right? And people, Russia covers something like, what is it, Mike? Is it nine time zones or something? Some crazy number, 11 time zones, I don't even know. If you go far East enough in Russia, the Russians look kind of like Chinese and Koreans.

A lot of them, right? This is just a fact of the geography. So they're trying to take these North Koreans and put them in Russian, indigenous Russian units, and then have it look, you know, to make it seem like they're not necessarily, because if they have to call upon North Korea to do their fighting, what does that mean about their manpower concerns?

And I think that's what is, again, like I just I just want the bloodshed to stop and the fighting to stop. I don't want any more Ukrainians going home in body bags. I don't want Russian reservists being called up from all over Russia to fight in a war that, you know, they feel duty bound to fight in. But they have no hatred of the Ukrainians and no interest in getting killed.

So I think that there's obviously a lot of loss that has been sustained by the Russians and they're going to second and third tier manpower reserves to do it. The part of it that I guess is just concerning to me is whenever you're involved, you know, you're sort of strengthening this

non-aligned axis. And as I said, China is always in the background of anything North Korea is doing. And so you got Russia, China, and they've been obviously Xi Jinping and Putin because of the sanctions have gotten a lot closer. There's been a lot. So once you start pulling all these entities together, that to me is not good for the rest of the world. I can't give a specific why that's going to translate into something that's of greater concern to us other than you don't want all your enemies to

feeling like their backs are together and they're facing out against everyone else. And I think there's more and more of that going on right now. I mean, do you see the North Korean manpower thing the same way? I just view it as

If Russia was kicking ass and not worried about it, they wouldn't be calling on North Korea. It's not like they bring some advantage to this, right? It's not like the old school, you know, you're a classics guy too, Mike. You know, they're not bringing slingers in from the Balearic Islands or, you know, Welsh longbowmen or some kind of like new...

It's dudes with guns. We're going to be in trenches and trying to shoot each other at distance, basically, and operate some drones, first-person view drones. Yeah. I think there's a lot of layers to this. One of them is Putin is...

loathe to do another conscription. He really needs to avoid that. And from a North Korean perspective, look, it gives Kim, he gets an opportunity to send some of his troops and get some real world battle experience. And

And also, again, everything that Putin's doing basically is designed to prop up his economy and his war machine. I think without North Korea, without Iran, without China, without India in terms of energy, Putin, I don't believe, would have been able to survive the past three years. He's essentially selling cheap energy and weapons technology in order to keep his war machine ticking along.

and he's got a handful of comrades in that effort. And I agree with you. I don't think there's any way that Xi Jinping woke up one morning, read the headlines and said, what? You've got to be kidding me. There's North Korean troops in Russia? Yeah, of course he knew. He might have helped negotiate the deal, Mike, honestly. He might have been like, all right, you know, you talk to Kim, let's get this going. Yeah, yeah. And I think, look, from the Chinese regime's perspective, you know, the one thing that they definitely don't want

and it sort of drives their

strategy with North Korea is the idea of millions of North Koreans streaming across the border in the event of a hot conflict with South Korea, right? That chaos. So there's a lot of complexity to this. And sometimes the unfortunate reality is that in today's world, you know, everybody wants a very immediate beginning, middle, end story. And so I do worry that, you know, that

because we've all got ADHD, right? We're all chasing the next shiny object that when it comes to things like, you know, choosing your next president, you know, it's, I think people need to take the time, right? To do a little bit of research and to understand the complexity. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't get to start. We're having a little, does this, yeah. Does this, does, does this involve P Diddy again or no?

I promise. Let me go on the record. That is my only P. Diddy story that I already shared. There's no other P. Diddy stories, okay? When I was a young CIA guy, I never got invited to a party at a mansion anywhere. No. I tell you something. I tell you something. You bring that up during your... Yeah. Yeah.

You bring that up. You bring up the P. Diddy story during your initial entrance polygraph. I know. You're not getting in, so I assume you kept that to yourself. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you got to remember, back in the day, he was...

pd used to hang out with uh you know hillary and the obamas and winch or he was toast to the town man he was considered the big no oh my god i mean you know innocent until proven guilty but uh looking pretty bad um so wait okay hey can i ask you can i ask you let me let me let me

Let me ask you a question, Bob. Sorry. I keep interrupting you, but you know what? This is the PDB situation report with Mike Baker. So I'm not, no, I'm not going to, I'm not going back to the ditty. What I did want to ask you was, because we mentioned the agency again is, and this is completely off topic, but I'm really enjoying this conversation. What, what possessed you to apply to the agency? What was, what was your motivation? What was your, what drove you there?

So funny. Tom Clancy books, 9-11 and not wanting to be some Wall Street student. That's really that's really it. All those three things together. I mean, 9-11 happened and I, you know, I had a grandfather was in the military. I mean, it was in the Navy in World War Two. I mean, a lot of people obviously had grand grandparents who served in that war or grandfathers that were in that war.

But we didn't have any military or anything like that in my family. So I kind of thought, I was like, maybe I'll do military. It just felt, I mean, I went to Amherst and it was one of these schools where, you know, we're talking early 2000s, obviously I'm talking about 9-11. It's like the whole school was just one other than the drinking and the partying and everything, which I mean, college is mostly a joke. I mean, people pretend like it's not, but for 90% of the people who go,

it's like socializing and just getting through it and then actually trying to be a real productive member of the human race um but everyone was trying to go mike into investment banking or consulting i mean that was yeah there were some people that went to law school wanted the corporate lawyer thing i mean there were some people that did teach for america and they had some stories um but for the most part it was just everyone wanted to go to mckinsey or goldman and how do you get there as fast as you can and i just felt like i mean look after 9 11 happened i'm a kid who

Like I said, I loved all I love the Tom Clancy books. I just on my own, I just go Tom Clancy. I've talked to talk about this on my radio show before, but Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton were sort of my first experiences. This was in grade school. So I don't know if like a lot of fifth graders are reading this stuff, but I like to read. And those are my first experience of like instead of.

Instead of watching TV or movies or something, I was like, I want to go read my Tom Clancy book. I just thought he was amazing. And so that was really how I learned about the CIA. No one had ever talked about the CIA in my house or anything like that. I just I'd seen Patriot Games. I knew there was this thing called the agency. I had read a book or two on the agency. I'm trying to remember Kessler. You remember Kessler's book on the CIA? I read this guy, Kessler, who's he was a journalist, not not an agency guy, but he kind of did a top to bottom interview.

I read Scheuer's Imperial Hubris. Do you remember that one about Afghanistan? And he's like, it's not going to end well. And he actually was right. So anyway, I kind of just found my way into it post 9-11. It felt like trying to just be some guy who's better at spreadsheets and sitting in an office for 80 hours a week wasn't interesting to me anymore. And I just, I was the first, Mike, I can tell you, it was the first job I applied for senior year.

And it was the job that I wanted. And yeah, I got my conditional offer that summer after graduation and it was off the races. So just got started.

That's fantastic. You know, it's stunning how from so many people, right, 9-11 was essentially seen as a call to duty, to honorable duty. And whether it was the military, whether it was the CIA, whether it was wherever, it was the motivating factor for a lot of folks that I know. You know, can I just say, Mike, I think that a lot of people now think of it in terms of

You know, we had to like we had to go get the bad guys there. So they, you know, for sort of justice purposes. But you also I know you remember this. The mindset was actually what's next.

Like, what are they going to hit us with next? You know, there was a real sense when they can run those planes into the buildings as they did kill almost 3000 people in one day. And there were and the agency was involved in some of it. And obviously, special operations community was real busy in those early years all over the world.

There were other mass casualty plots underway. Like we were, I think that people lose that sense of urgency now, right? They lose that sense of, oh, 9-11 happened, but then like we did these things and these wars and we eventually got bin Laden. And the story was really much more 9-11 happened. Like when's the next 9-11 gonna happen? Now, when's the next, and is it gonna be 10,000 people? Is it gonna be 100,000 people? Is it gonna be a dirty bomb? Now, maybe some of that got to the point of almost a, you know,

too, too much anxiety, you know, and maybe even a hysteria. But that was a very widespread sentiment after what we saw. And I'll just say, I mean, I think that's how the Israeli people now feel, rightly so, after October 7th. Right. It's just it's on now. Oh, no, absolutely. I think. And, you know, I want to have you back to focus on the Middle East at some point here in the near future. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, look, the sad fact is that.

It takes a tragic event. It takes a moment like a 9/11 or like a 7 October to create this unity. That was one of the striking things after that. It was one of those few moments, I think, for people in that time to experience what occurred during World War II, as an example, where we were all Americans. It didn't matter.

you know, what political party you were in. You know, that divide just shrunk. All of a sudden, people were back into the center and working together. Well, you knew this from the agency side. I mean, people ask me, they're like, how could you? Because now, in recent years, because of, like, Russia collusion and, you know, complete...

Jerks like what Clapper and these other guys have come out and made fools of themselves, the media and the laptop is fake and all this stuff that we've seen. Hyper partisan stuff from these guys. Not all of them have done it, but a lot of the recent directors and everything else. People ask me, like, how could you ever work the CIA? I was like in 2004, 2005, when I was getting in the game.

It was like we're working here because we need to stop them from blowing up our planes and buildings and killing women and children. And like it was a very clear sense of mission, to your point. And then nobody was showing up there. It wasn't like some partisan crybaby fest about like, well, your side and who's your president? That stuff was really very much in the background. And I think, unfortunately, that from what I hear is not as much the case these days, but it certainly was the case then.

No. Yeah, absolutely. It's and it's hard to recall those feelings. Right. In today's hyper partisan world. But as it. But this is I really enjoyed this conversation. It's been a real pleasure. And I want to say, listen, thank you for taking the time. Buck Sexton, co-host, as you know, as everyone knows of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. You know, frankly, I would make it the Buck Sexton and Clay Travis show. I don't know how you got second. Yeah.

But he's older. We go age before beauty. Oh, he's older. OK, there you go. That makes sense. Just think about that, though, when you're when you're re-upping your contract. Just think about the changing that around. Anyway, Lixon, thanks very much for joining us. When we call you back, I hope you come back. Thanks so much. Anytime, man. Great to be with you, Mike. Thank you.

Talk to you soon. Take care, man. Well, all right. Look, coming up next, China flexes its muscles in the Far East, engaging in large-scale military exercises surrounding the island of Taiwan in what it called a warning against independence. Author Gordon Chang, our good friend, gives us his analysis when we come back.

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China's president, Xi Jinping, was in Russia this week attending the annual BRICS summit alongside leaders from two dozen countries. Now, the BRICS group originally comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. And if you take the first letter from each of those countries, they cleverly spells BRICS. Among others now, because they've expanded the group, aims to strengthen economic and political ties among nations seeking to counterbalance Western dominance on the global stage.

This year's summit saw discussions on expanding membership, boosting trade through alternative currencies, and reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar, all central to challenging Western power and hegemony. Notably, this summit comes just one week after China's military engaged in provocative large-scale exercises around Taiwan, during which Chinese warships and aircraft encircled the island in a clear show of force.

Beijing called it a, quote, warning to Taipei, reiterating its stance that Taiwan is part of China's sovereign territory and that any move toward formal independence would not be tolerated. The timing of these two events, the military drills and Xi's participation in the BRICS summit, reflects China's two-pronged strategy, asserting its power militarily in its immediate region while diplomatically strengthening alliances to challenge Western influence globally.

Now, for more on this, let me bring in our friend Gordon Chang. He's the author of the brand new book, Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. Gordon, thank you very much for joining us again today on the Situation Report. Thanks, Mike.

First of all, congratulations on the book. It is a little alarming. And when I say a little alarming, I mean it's very alarming. Tell us sort of top line, 30,000 foot, the reasons why you wrote the book and kind of what you want people to take away from it if you could. American leaders and policymakers fundamentally misunderstand China's assault on the American republic.

So, for instance, you've got President Biden saying, oh, we can cooperate with China in areas where we have common interests. Well, no, you can't have common interests with a regime that is trying to destroy your country. And that's unfortunately the situation. The Communist Party believes it is in an existential struggle with the United States. And it's because not of anything that we say or do, but because of who we are.

An insecure regime in Beijing is worried about the inspirational impact of our values and form of governance on the Chinese people, which means we will never have amicable relations with China as long as the party rules it. And that also means there's only going to be one survivor. It'll either be the People's Republic of China or the United States of America, not both. I know that Americans don't want to confront that, but if we don't confront that, we're going to lose our country. It's interesting because you're essentially saying

And we've talked about this before, but you've laid it out in this book that the two countries are running on two separate tracks, where the U.S. tends to think that we're in a competitive stance with China, but yet we somehow have mutually shared interests at times.

and somehow exist in the same community of nations. And what you're saying about the Chinese regime is they're essentially on a war footing. Yes, and they've made it very clear. May 2019, People's Daily, which is the most authoritative publication in China. When People's Daily speaks, that's China speaking. May 2019, People's Daily carried a landmark editorial declaring a people's war on America.

Now, people's war is a phrase which has great resonance in Communist Party thought. It's total war, as the PLA Daily, an official publication of the Chinese military, told us last year. Total war. And that means things like fentanyl. That's just not criminal activity. That's the Communist Party trying to kill Americans.

which means that somewhere between 70 and 75,000 Americans each year who die from doses of illicit Chinese fentanyl, they are murdered. And we have a political system that will not come to that conclusion, which means China will continue to kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. And I think also that sort of the ways in which, again, to use this concept of the regime is at war or on war footing,

The various ways in which they're doing this, it's not, you know, people shouldn't just think of it as a, okay, we're going to get in this kinetic war, this hot war with China, perhaps over Taiwan. But they're engaged in a variety of things, whether it's cyber shenanigans, whether it's disinformation, whether it's impacting elections at a local and a state level.

level. And that to me, I mean, look, one of the things that I do is I run a company that does a lot of work around the world, collecting information, investigations. And we have seen over the recent past, we've seen instances where the Chinese regime is trying to impact local, meaning city and state policies and regulations, because I think they've realized

that it may be tough to change federal policy in the US through various means, but if they can work through cutouts, if they can work through seemingly unconnected organizations at a state or local or federal or sorry, a city level, then they can impact regulations, whether it means for mining, energy, agriculture, whatever it is, and those things benefit

the Chinese regime in a way. Yes. In this election cycle, China is very active down ballot. So for instance, in June in New York state, they were trying to affect the outcomes in Democratic Party primaries. And so that shows you to the extent that China's involvement is pervasive.

This time, they're also trying to disrupt the United States by using fake posters, talking about all sorts of divisive issues to get the American people to fight among themselves. And we know that Iran actually hacked the Trump campaign and gave the material to Harris's.

So they've been involved. And you know, when you go back to 2020, China actually was extremely decisive. They supported Biden over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. They supported Biden over Trump in the general election. And they got exactly what they wanted.

Gordon, if you'd stay right there, we've got some sponsors. We're going to take just a quick break. Gordon Chang, author of the brand new book, Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. Hang with us. Gordon, we'll be right back. Here's a question for you. Do you think you know who will win the presidential election? Or how many seats the Democrats or Republicans will win in the House or Senate?

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is the author of Planned Red, China's Project to Destroy America, Gordon Chang. Gordon, when you look at the upcoming election, you've probably heard about it. We're going to have this election in the U.S. coming up in a little less than two weeks.

From a perspective of how a Harris administration would deal with the Chinese regime or a Trump administration would deal with the Chinese regime, can you lay out what you would see as the principal differences, the pros and cons? Yeah.

Yeah. Harris, we know, is not interested in foreign affairs. So she basically doesn't have principles when it comes to China. But also we know that every American president, when they start out, gives China a grace period. Sometimes it's months, sometimes it's more. But she was probably going to do that. Now, Trump has already been president, who's already been burned by the Chinese, is probably not going to give them much of a grace period, if anything at all.

The other difference on the Harris campaign is that they've got a guy named Tim Walz, who looks like a communist sympathizer. And we know this from his continuous contact with the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, contact which he had in the 1990s and which has continued through his being governor of Minnesota. So this covers now spanning four decades.

With Trump, you know, Trump does a lot of things the Chinese actually like. But the point is, they don't want him anywhere near the Oval Office because he does a lot of things they don't like. And also, most important, he's unpredictable.

The Chinese can deal with a hostile American president, but they can't deal with someone they think they cannot control. And they know that they cannot control Trump. And this is something that we saw going back to April 2017 when Xi Jinping was actually at Mar-a-Lago and over that most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.

Trump stands up and says, I've just ordered a missile strike on Syria, which is a Chinese friend. And Xi Jinping was completely flummoxed. And by the way, he was relatively well behaved for the four years of the Trump administration. And as soon as Biden took over, the Chinese went on a rampage. Well, I mean, to be fair to Tim Walz, wasn't he in Tiananmen Square? Didn't he stand in front of the tanks? I don't remember what the story was.

And he doesn't either. Actually, he's actually lied to the American people about it.

I mean, he actually said that he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Massacre. When he wasn't even in Hong Kong, he didn't come until August of 1989. And I don't know how he could have misremembered that because that is something that was graphic. I mean, we all know, I mean, people who were in Hong Kong in 1989, they knew where they were when they heard about Tiananmen Square.

Tim Walz has just lied consistently about his relations with China to the American people. And I'm not a Republican, but I can say that his presence on the ticket means that no American should vote for Harris because Tim Walz looks like a communist and he'll be just one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. And God forbid, he actually could end up being president of the United States.

Yeah. Yeah. Although I'm not sure that I'm not sure that facts anymore count that much when it comes to U.S. politics. I just don't know. I think we're in a dysfunctional state and I'm not sure how we walk that dog back. But that's me being cynical and I don't want to disappear down that rabbit hole. Gordon, let's talk about if you could.

the recent military exercises that China just engaged in around Taiwan. Now, it came kind of hot on the heels of the Taiwanese president giving a National Day speech

And of course, they refer to him as a dangerous separatist. But do you think that the military exercises, were they reactionary to that? Or were these a long time in the planning and they're part of a bigger picture, a longer term strategy? And also,

What's your takeaway from this? I guess what I'm really asking here, Gordon, and this is almost impossible to answer is, what's that timeline look like? We've talked about this before. In terms of Taiwan, how do you perceive a timeline for Xi acting on their ambitions?

On your first question, it wasn't reactionary to President Lai's 1010 speech. That's the national day in Taiwan. I mean, these things had to be planned long time in advance. And these occurred just four days after that speech, which is actually quite a mild one.

What we have seen over the last week, because that was Monday and Tuesday of last week. Then on Tuesday of this week were the live fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. Last Thursday, we heard from state media that Xi Jinping was giving a pep talk to the rocket force, which controls almost all of the country's nuclear weapons, where he's saying that they need to be ready for combat, which is an implied threat to start a nuclear war.

So the timeline can be any time.

Now, Taiwan officials have been telling visiting foreigners that they expect China to impose a quarantine on Taiwan within six months. So that's sort of like the outer limit. Because when they institute a quarantine, they're going to probably fail at that, which means that they need a blockade. That's an act of war. Blockade brings in Japan for various reasons. Japan brings in us. So, you know, that is your outer edge. But, you know, generally speaking,

We should be prepared for anything at any place at any time, because this regime in Beijing is under a lot of internal pressure. Xi Jinping can take us by surprise, and we are not thinking about this in the way that the Chinese are. They talk about war all the time. They're preparing for it. We've got a Biden who just couldn't care less. He's just checked out. Look, we've got so much more that we could talk about, and I've got a long list of questions I'd like to throw your way, but I want to be mindful of your time.

And so I hope when we knock on your door again, you'll open the door and come back. Gordon Chang, author of Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America. If you don't have your copy, go get one. Thank you so much for joining us again today and look forward to talking to you again soon, hopefully, Gordon. I would love to do that, Mike. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. Well...

That is all the time we have for today's PDB Situation Report. Look, if you have any questions, you know, or comments or humorous anecdotes that you'd like me to talk about on the air, reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. The mailroom at the PDB's global corporate headquarters is absolutely chock full of overstuffed mailbags containing your questions and your pithy comments and your suggestions. And once a month, what we do is a select group of PDB executives

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